Cronulla fisheries closure to go ahead

THE NSW government will ignore the recommendations of a parliamentary inquiry and push ahead with the closure of the Cronulla Fisheries Research Centre, saying it is 80 per cent complete.

In a scathing report, the upper house committee in October said the decision to close the centre in southern Sydney and move jobs to regional NSW was "an example of how not to undertake decentralisation".

The government put on hold the relocation program until it responded to the inquiry's recommendations, but on Friday Primary Industries Minister Katrina Hodgkinson confirmed the move would go ahead.

The closure, announced last year without any economic appraisal, triggered outrage among more than 100 Cronulla staff opposed to moving to new headquarters in Port Stephens, Nowra and Coffs Harbour.

"This is about sharing the economic benefits with our regional communities and the NSW Government cannot accept the recommendation to reverse the closure of the Cronulla Fisheries Research Centre," Ms Hodgkinson said in a statement.

"The relocation project, including transferring employees, equipment and establishing new office, laboratories and storage facilities began 13 months ago and is now 80 per cent complete."

In its response the government committed to keeping the prime waterfront fisheries site in public hands, after concerns were raised at the inquiry that it might be sold to developers.

"At the end of the day, decentralisation requires strong leadership from Government and that is what we were elected to do," Ms Hodgkinson said.

The Public Service Association (PSA) called the decision gutless and cowardly.

The government deliberately waited until the Industrial Relations Commission and parliament closed for business over the Christmas period, assistant NSW secretary Shane O'Brien said.

"They do it in the hope that the news will be buried in the busy-ness of the season, and they do it in the knowledge that legal areas of recourse for the workers are severely limited."

Mr O'Brien said the parliamentary inquiry found the government did not have a sound business case, an economic analysis, or evidence of improvement of service for making such an "arrogant decision".

"What we've got is a government that has ignored the workers, the fishing industry, the fishing communities, stakeholders, researchers, parliament, they've ignored everybody," Mr O'Brien said.

"They haven't once been prepared to sit down with the staff there and explain to them why their opposition to the plan is flawed. They've hidden from them for 16 months."

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